Future of Normally Aspirated Petrol Engines?


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Fiat, Ford and Volkswagen have tasted varied degrees of success with launch of turbocharged petrol engines in India in the past 2-3 years. Despite past hiccups with turbocharged petrol engines in US and Europe, their advantages in terms of better fuel economy and lower carbon emissions are getting hard to ignore.

Earlier Ford and now Volkswagen have indicated that normally aspirated petrol engines will be phased out in it's lineup in the next 3-4 years:

Volkswagen Will Be Totally Turbo in the Coming Years - Automotive Discovery - Auto Industry News and Rumors - Car News and Rumors

On a constant pursuit of excellence, Volkswagen has announced that conventional gas engines will be phased out of all of their models over the next three to four years.
...
You have to have a turbo these days,” Trahan told The Detroit News following an Automotive Press Association event. “We only have one normally aspirated gas engine, and when we go to the next generation vehicle that it’s in, it will be replaced. So three, four years maximum.”
...
Ford Motor Co. vice president of powertrain engineering shared that Ford is also moving away from the older style engines. He said, “At some point in the future that will be an option.”
Ford, Volkswagen say turbocharged engines are future [VIDEO] - UPI.com

Despite the hiccups associated with any technology, the U.S. automaker Ford says it can see a day when all vehicles are either hybrids, electrics or powered by turbocharged engines.
In an interview in 2011 with Automotive World by VPs of Honeywell, here are some projections on percent of vehicles that will be turbocharged :
http://honeywellbooster.com/assets/interview-honeywell-david-paja-craig-balis.pdf

Europe, North America and China are more or less the same in terms of light vehicles. For us, turbo penetration in Europe is al
ready reaching around 63% this year. We see that growing to 85% in the next five years. Pretty much every vehicle in Europe will have a turbo in the next few years. We see the US in particular, and China, going from very low, single-digit penetration rates, to significant increases. In the US, we see turbo penetration growing toabout 20-25%, with a similar growth in China.
Forbes magazine article has newer projections from Honeywell ...
According to Honeywell, downsized and turbocharged gasoline engines plus turbodiesel engines combined account for more than 75 percent of new vehicles in Europe. The company doesn’t expect the United States to reach that level until around 2025.

For the United States, Honeywell has roughly doubled its estimate for diesel sales penetration by 2018, to 6 percent from 3 percent. By 2018, it expects diesel and gasoline turbo engines combined to account for about 20 to 25 percent of U.S. new-vehicle sales.
In light of this, some questions to ponder:

1. Does it make sense to purchase a normally aspirated engine in 2014 ?
2. Do we have too little data on how Turbocharged petrol engines perform with respect to reliability and cost of maintenance ?
3. Does the mass Indian market even care about engine technologies to bother with turbocharged petrol engines ?

Europe is ahead of US in adoption of Turbocharger technologies, because of more awareness of environment and less obsession about size. In India, the sensitivity to fuel economy should ideally create an environment that will accelerate demand for Turbocharger technology. Pricing wise too, Fiat's T-Jet and Ford's Ecoboost vehicles are very reasonably priced over their normally aspirated counterparts. So I think the future will be bright for adoption of Turbocharger technologies in B2, C & D segments in India.
 
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In light of this, some questions to ponder:

1. Does it make sense to purchase a normally aspirated engine in 2014 ?
2. Do we have too little data on how Turbocharged petrol engines perform with respect to reliability and cost of maintenance ?
3. Does the mass Indian market even care about engine technologies to bother with turbocharged petrol engines ?
  1. Ofcourse, It is still good 2-3 years in future that all petrol cars in India may be turbocharged.
  2. No idea.
  3. I bet 95% of Indians dont care about engines, what they care about is interiors and car.[evil]

My take, Turbocharged petrol engines are the future. [clap][glasses]
 
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  1. Ofcourse, It is still good 2-3 years in future that all petrol cars in India may be turbocharged.
  2. No idea.
  3. I bet 95% of Indians dont care about engines, what they care about is interiors and car.[evil]

My take, Turbocharged petrol engines are the future. [clap][glasses]
Definitely yes, turbos will rule the next gen automotive market. In the wake of ever increasing fuel prices turbo charged gasoline engines make more sense as it returns better FE but at a premium.
 
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Definitely yes, turbos will rule the next gen automotive market. In the wake of ever increasing fuel prices turbo charged gasoline engines make more sense as it returns better FE but at a premium.
Yes at a premium, but at the moment. Now after few years, when every other car is on turbocharged petrol engine and competition is fierce then the prices may be tune to more reasonable ones. And also as technology moves ahead the manufacturing cost of the same would also go down as compared to current manufacturing costs.
 
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I would say it is a evolution. Like
Column mounted gear was replaced by floor gear...
Carburetor was replaced by Fuel Injector...
slowly normal steering is getting replaced by power steering.

So now time is coming to replace the natural aspirated engine with turbocharged engine.
 
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Yes at a premium, but at the moment. Now after few years, when every other car is on turbocharged petrol engine and competition is fierce then the prices may be tune to more reasonable ones. And also as technology moves ahead the manufacturing cost of the same would also go down as compared to current manufacturing costs.
Exactly dharmesh you have covered that point precisely. Much of these adoptions by OEM's are largely due to government ensured regulations. We have already seen in European & US markets where stringent norms are in place for increasing FE and reducing the carbon footprint. So this leaves a question - Why doesn't it happen the same way in India?

India, one of the largest vehicle market in the world with more than 1 million annual sales is way behind when it comes to enforcement of regulations - reduction of CO2 emissions, safety etc. I feel there should be more push from the authorities so that Indian customers do get a feel of the latest technical advancements. Adoption of right regulations and monitoring would yield much higher benefits than spending billions of dollars on oil import.
 

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